With the development of networks, especially the advent of a next generation network (NGN) era, network bandwidth continues increasing with stronger capacity and richer functionality. With NGN, colorful RBTs, like songs, cartoons and movie clips, can be provided, satisfying the personalized requirements of users.
By requesting to activate the multimedia RBT service, a user can order these personalized RBTs and become an RBT subscriber. A multimedia RBT is a service subscribed by a called party, which provides a piece of music, a greeting, an image or a video clip as the RBT for a calling party, instead of the ordinary sound of “toot . . . toot . . . ”. If a called party is a RBT subscriber, when calling the called party, a calling party will hear or see a personalized RBT subscribed by the called party. Taking the implementation based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) in the NGN as an example, the following details the procedure in which the calling party calls the RBT subscriber and hears the RBT subscribed by the called party.
FIG. 1 shows a network system for playing RBTs to the calling party in the NGN. The system includes a network and a calling party. The network includes a softswitch, a smart home location register (SHLR), an application server (AS), a media resource server (MRS), a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, an RBT platform and a database of the RBT platform. The calling party includes a calling party and a called party. The called party is a RBT subscriber.
The softswitch is a core equipment at the network control layer in the NGN. In addition to rich fixed-line telecom services and supplementary services, the softswitch provides the calling party with diversified and value-added services by interacting with various application servers. The SHLR is a comprehensive central subscriber database that stores logical numbers, physical numbers and their mapping as well as intelligent network (IN) service attributes of subscribers.
The AS provides a service execution environment and value added services for networks accessing the NGN. The MRS provides feature resources for the AS to implement the interaction with subscribers, thus realizing service functions and playing of RBTs. The FTP server with a large capacity is adapted for storing a large amount of voice and video files. If there are few voice and video files, the FTP server may not be required.
The RBT platform is adapted for providing uniform interfaces for RBT data management and operation management. The RBT platform database stores RBT related information.
The procedure for playing the RBT to a calling party based on the system is shown in FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 shows the flowchart of playing the RBT to the calling party. The calling party sends a request to the AS via the softswitch. The AS sends the called number to the softswitch upon reception of the call request. The softswitch routes the call to the called party. If the called party is connected, it sends an Alert message to the AS via the softswitch. Upon reception of the Alert message, the AS queries the RBT subscribed by the called party in the database of the RBT platform and sends a Play RBT message to the MRS. The MRS obtains the RBT file, sets up a media channel with the calling party, and plays the RBT to the calling party. After the called party answers the call and notifies the AS, the AS sends a SIP BYE message to the MRS. The MRS stops playing the RBT. The calling party and the called party perform media negotiation and start normal communication.
If the calling party is also the RBT subscriber, when the calling party hears a favorite RBT and wants to order it, the calling party can only search and download it from the network. It may happen from time to time that the calling party does not know the name of the RBT or that the calling party knows the name but does not know how to download the RBT. This makes it impossible for the calling party to obtain the RBT of the called party instantly when the calling party listens to the RBT.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.